<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Look by strange_nut_pirate</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122694">The Look</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_nut_pirate/pseuds/strange_nut_pirate'>strange_nut_pirate</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>OTP Prompt Oneshots [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Homesickness, M/M, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), but it’s rEsPecTfUl, keith doesn’t know how to deal with feelings for his cuban dork, mild jealousy, minus the hetero aspects, sort of canon conpliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:15:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_nut_pirate/pseuds/strange_nut_pirate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith and Lance were given a mission to sneak onto a Galra ship and redirect it to enemy territory. It’s not a difficult mission, and only needs two paladins, but still, Keith can’t help but think Lance is a very inconvenient partner for him. Especially when they get to talking, and Keith has no clue what to say.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Lance (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>OTP Prompt Oneshots [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Look</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It’s been a while since I updated this series so here’s some therapeutic klance that I wrote in my spare time. I’m still not over them and I’m not sure I ever will be.</p><p>I wrote this for fun so it’s probably not that good but I hope you enjoy reading anyways ❤️💙❤️💙</p><p>All prompts from: https://drink-it-write-it.tumblr.com/post/189074732022/200-prompts</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>“Stay here and don’t move. I’ll be right back.”</strong>
</p><p>“Yeah, fuck that. No offence,” Lance said, and started crawling after Keith.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Keith hissed at him, but Lance was relentless.</p><p>“You think that I will mess everything up for you, and you’re trying to get me to stay back so you can get all the credit for busting this Galra unit. Well, not on my watch, Mullet! Not on my watch!”</p><p>“Keep it down, Lance!” Keith whispered loudly. He then had to stifle a groan.</p><p>Of course life would come down to this. Stuck in an air vent on an enemy alien ship with a mental five year old as his only ally. In fact, Keith was sure that Lance only agreed to help him out to impress Allura. The Altean Princess had him whipped for her as soon as she fell out of her coma and into his arms. Wow, truly an amazing start to their blossoming romance. And they say chivalry is dead.</p><p>Keith glanced behind him to see Lance focused on getting a booger out of his nose. Keith cringed, and at that awkward moment, Lance glances at him. His coffee coloured cheeks went a dark red as he glared at Keith in embarrassment.</p><p>“Don’t look at me!” He exclaimed, self consciously covering his nose.</p><p>Keith just rolled his eyes and kept crawling until they came to an opening in the vent, where Keith could see the Galra ship’s control room. Keith counted around five Galra at the control panels, and two guards stationed by the doors. He sucked in a breath, this was going to be tricky. The five guards at the control panel could trigger the alarms at any time if need be, and the two Galra beside the doors could easily call for backup. Keith reckoned he had to shut the control room off first, that way no one could get in and out. If Pidge were here, that would be perfect. She could just hack the system and shut it down inconspicuously, so the Galra wouldn’t trigger the alarms first. Then Keith could take them out quickly. But now, he wasn’t so sure how he should execute this—</p><p>He felt a tight weight shuffling beside him.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Keith asked Lance quietly.</p><p>“I wanna see,” Lance said, struggling to fit next to him in the small vent.</p><p>“You’re making too much noise,” Keith frowned at him, because Lance’s clumsy limbs and gangly figure was causing a lot of squeaking. Miraculously, the Galra didn’t seem to notice them, too caught up in whatever jobs they were partaking in. For their large, furry ears, they sure were deaf (or maybe they just felt bad for them).</p><p>“Do you want me to snipe them?” Lance asked, probably his closest to a whisper that he could manage. </p><p>Keith wanted to slap himself. Why didn’t he think of that? Instead, he just nodded gravely. </p><p>“Okay, you see that Galra near that red control panel?” Keith said, gesturing towards him. “Take him out first, and use one of those silent tranquilisers Allura gave you. We don’t want to make a ruckus. I’m going to drop down during the same time and take out those two guards near the entrance, and then try your best to take out the others silently. I’ll finish them off if you can’t.”</p><p>Lance’s face turned more and more sour the more Keith talked, but Keith was used to it. He knew Lance hated when Keith was bossing him around, but sometimes it was necessary.</p><p>“You’re talking to me like I’m two,” Lance pouted. “I can take out all of the Galra near the control panel, you can just concentrate on the stationed guards, and closing that door.”</p><p>Keith nodded.</p><p>“Okay, sounds like a plan,” he said. “On my count, one…”</p><p>“What? No! On my count! Why does it always have to be on <em>your</em> count?” Lance hissed at him. </p><p>Keith just rolled his eyes. He didn’t know why Shiro paired them up, and he couldn’t help but think his intentions were a little off when he said he and Lance should “bond” during this mission. Keith didn’t need to “bond.” He was, quite clearly, terrible at bonding in general, and he and Lance just didn’t click. He didn’t know how to get Lance to stop hating him, and at some point, he stopped caring. Okay, that was a bit of a lie. But it was hard enough to not get people to hate his guts at first meeting, but to try and fix a relationship was beyond him. </p><p>It was sad, though, because no matter how much Lance despised Keith, Keith couldn’t bring himself to make the feelings mutual. He wished he could, because that probably would’ve been easier on his behalf.</p><p>So, he waited for Lance’s count.</p><p>“One… two… three!”</p><p>Keith kicked the air vent out just as Lance was lowering his gun to get a proper aim at the Galra. Keith rolled onto the ground, expecting to hear alarms the moment he touched down, but it never came. Instead, he activated his bayard and sprinted at the Galra guards who were still confused by the situation. Before one of them could actually start raising their gun, Keith had taken down one guard and sliced off the head of the gun for the other, before he could shoot and alert others. Not too soon after, that Galra was down too. Keith ran over to the door and got out the USB Pidge had given him for entryways from his belt. The door closed soon after he logged it into the control panel there, totally locked.</p><p>“Thank god there are no cameras here, huh?” Lance said, already down from the vent, and all the other Galra lying unconscious. He was jamming his given USB into a specific control panel, redirecting the Galra ship to their enemy territory.</p><p>“Now what do we do?” Lance asked, and Keith shrugged.</p><p>“We have to make sure this ship gets to the location, so I guess we just stay here and take off when we can confirm that any interruptions won’t happen.”</p><p>“Wow, okay,” Lance said, leaning back on one of the tables and stretching.</p><p>“Don’t touch anything, Lance,” Keith warned. He didn’t want this ship to start breaking down whilst they were on it. </p><p>“You don’t trust me with anything,” Lance sulked and made his way to sit down against one of the walls. “You always think I don’t know what I’m doing.”</p><p>“Because most of the time, you don't.”</p><p>“That’s not fair! I do! Just ask Hunk.”</p><p>“Hunk would never tell the truth if that hurt your feelings,” Keith said, deadpan. </p><p>Lance looked away, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth small, he looked stingy. Keith guessed it was his fault, but he didn’t really know what he did to upset Lance. He sighed and went to take a seat next to him, just realising how tall he was now that they were beside each other, and not squashed in a vent.</p><p>“It’s not you fault,” Keith said, trying to make amends, and cringing at his lousy attempt. “I mean, we’re on an alien ship, going to planets and galaxies we’ve never been before, flying intergalactic lions and whatnot. We’re battling a whole advanced species we didn’t even know existed until you crash landed your lion into Altea.”</p><p>“I didn’t crash land,” Lance said, but there was a ghost of a smirk on his face. He was no doubt reminiscing.</p><p>“You get the idea.”</p><p>“Yeah, but you always know what to do, don’t you?”</p><p>Keith recoiled, nearly laughing at him.</p><p>“What? Of course not!”</p><p>Lance looked at him doubtfully, and upon realising Keith wasn’t joking (he didn’t <em>do</em> jokes anyways), he raised his brows in surprise. </p><p>“Seriously?” He said. “But you’re always so… annoyingly together.”</p><p>“Um… thanks? But anyways, <em>not</em> the case. At all.”</p><p>“Oh,” Lance says, looking up at all the screens of the Galra control room, that we’re projecting different areas of the ship. </p><p>He looked contemplative. And beautiful, with his face shining from the purple hue of the ship. Keith still thought he was one of the most annoying people he had met thus far, but he couldn’t help but admire him quietly. It was almost painful, to allow himself to indulge in Lance’s appearance, because he was so used to avoiding him every time that happened. So he looked away yet again, because Lance was blinding him, searing him mercilessly.</p><p>“Well, I guess you don’t know everything. You don’t know what a team chant is, for one thing.”</p><p>Keith gave a short laugh, and a brief silence ensued. He panicked, thinking of what to say next, but looking at Lance’s expression, he thought otherwise. He looked to be concentrated again, his teasing remark about Kieth quickly forgotten. He was about to respond with: ‘maybe you could teach me’ when Lance spoke up again.</p><p>“Do you ever get homesick?” Lance asked abruptly.</p><p>“No,” Keith said quickly, without much thought. </p><p>He glanced over at Lance again, almost tentatively, and saw he was gazing at him in that contemplative manner again. His face was pinched, not quite scrunched up, but not relaxed either, like Keith was a tricky question in his math test. </p><p>“Why not?” He asked.</p><p>“Because there’s nothing much left for me on Earth. My dad’s gone, I’m out of the Garrison, I’ve solved the mystery of Voltron, and I’m with Shiro already, so no. There’s nothing at home for me.”</p><p>“Shiro means that much to you, huh?” Lance said, and there was something off about the way he said it that made Keith rethink his entire relationship with Shiro.</p><p>“Shiro is like family to me,” Keith said, slowly. “He was there for me when no one else was, and he believed in me. So yeah, he does mean that much to me.”</p><p>Lance nodded off, staring out again, his mind clearly drifting off. His gaze held something of longing.</p><p>“Do you miss home?” Keith asked, his voice so low, it was almost a whisper.</p><p>“You have no idea,” Lance breathed, his mouth quirking up into a humorless smile, and Keith saw pain in his eyes. “I miss my family so much, Keith.”</p><p>And that was it. This was the jarring, cold realisation of how different Keith and Lance were. There was no way Lance could have ever understood why Keith couldn’t care less about returning to Earth, and there was no chance Keith could try to comprehend the pain in Lance’s smile. He has Shiro, but Keith had always been independent before then, a lone wolf. He never looked for family, but with the new knowledge of how much Lance was hurting, being away from his people, Keith just couldn’t comprehend it. He was living a bigger, more meaningful life. He was partaking in something bigger than he was. He was playing the role of a universal hero. How could he be hurting so much with something like that?</p><p>Instead, Keith didn’t say anything. He scrambled for something, anything to make Lance happy again.</p><p>“But at least you have an infinite number of girls to win the attention of,” he laughed nervously, hating himself for saying the words as soon as he said them, because it was true and he really didn’t want to see Lance rave on about his adventures with different women.</p><p>But Lance just shrugged.</p><p>“Nah,” he said, and Keith was shocked for the millionth time that day. Who was he and what did he do to Lance? “I mean, they’re all very nice. But I always know they’re temporary, and I’m okay with that. I feel like I talk to them just to distract myself. I don’t know anymore. It’s all weird.”</p><p>Ah, there’s Lance. The guy that describes any troubling emotions as ‘weird’. Yet Keith couldn’t help but be curious. Lance had never opened up to him this way before, and he wanted the moment to last as long as it could. Just like the time he said they made a good team. Keith was so stupid, falling for Lance then. He didn’t like thinking about that memory either, because it would do no good but torture himself with ‘what ifs’ or ‘whys.’ Yet, embarrassingly, he thought about it constantly.</p><p>“The ladies distract you from your homesickness?” Keith asked.</p><p>Lance shook his head, averting his gaze, suddenly losing confidence. Seeing Lance without his typical bravado was like seeing a lion with no teeth. </p><p>“Yes,” Lance said, “but mostly no too. It’s like… like they’re more a sort of reminder that I should settle for them. Because I’m not going to get the… the thing… that I want.”</p><p>“Wow, nice description.”</p><p>“I’m trying my best here.”</p><p>“No doubt.”</p><p>Lance laughed, and it brightened Keith’s mood considerably, seeing him grin like that. So he decided that he might try a bit more. </p><p>“Allura will come to terms,” Keith said bravely, his voice unfaltering. </p><p>Because he believed it. He believed that someone as relentless, charismatic, kind, sensitive and goofy like Lance could win anyone over. He won Keith over without even trying to. All he had to do was look at him like Keith meant something to him, and Keith was gone. It didn’t even matter how absurd or annoying he could be, it all paled. So surely, <em>surely</em> Allura will see Lance the same way he does.</p><p>But Lance looked at Keith like he grew an extra head, his face scrunched up in confusion.</p><p>“What?” Lance asked.</p><p>Keith patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.</p><p>“I’m saying, Allura will like you back. For sure, given enough time. You Just have to allow yourself to grow on her, because you can be quite unbearable at the start. Especially with how clingy you are with her, she may be losing her mind a bit.”</p><p>Keith was expecting at least a nod, or a smile, or maybe a rant about Allura's “gorgeous, flowing locks of hair and her bright kaleidoscope eyes that lit up Lance’s world”, but he was not expecting Lance to look as hurt as he did.</p><p>“Didn’t you listen to my very in-depth confession?” He said. “I told you they were all just temporary stuff to help me cope with… stuff…”</p><p>He got up, and sighed, stretching his back, leaving Keith dumbfounded on the floor.</p><p>“We should probably get off this ship,” he said, his tone cold. “By the way, sorry about all that. I get, um, weird. If you don’t want to listen to me talk you can just say so—”</p><p>“No, Lance, that’s not—” Keith interrupted, and then groaned because he was <em>so fucking bad at this!</em> “I just thought you were in love with Allura.”</p><p>Lance gave a short bark of laughter.</p><p>“In love with Allura?! No way! Jeez, Mullet! You’re more oblivious than I thought!”</p><p>Lance laughed again and started to make his way towards the air vent, ready to leave, but Keith was still in shock.</p><p>
  <em>Lance isn’t in love with Allura.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Lance isn’t in love with Allura.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Lance. Isn’t. In. Love. With. Allura.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Am I dreaming?</em>
</p><p>“Then who are you in love with?” Keith blurted.</p><p>Lance looked at him. Like <em>that.</em> He gave him ‘The Look.’ The Look that made Keith’s heart stutter and his face heat like never before. The Look that Keith thought about late at night sometimes. The Look that sent him into overdrive, overwhelming him with a myriad of emotions. The small, genuine smile, twinkling eyes of dark blue, the softness of his features and the amusement and… adoration his expression held. Like Keith meant something more than just a guy with a mullet he despised when they were kids.</p><p>Yeah, <em>that</em> look.</p><p>“Oblivious,” he sighed, and then disappeared up the vent, his boyish laughter echoing through it. </p><p>And Keith was left there, incomprehensible thoughts of Lance, Lance, and more Lance flooding his mind, and his heart beating faster and louder than it ever had before.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>